Pickles

There are vegetable markets in Boston's North End in which you are not allowed to touch the produce. You point to the pile of your choice and they fill your bag. I got yelled at once there so I learned the hard way. The Haymarket vegetable guys will grab whatever and load your bag. So usually a good portion of your "cheaper" produce is not very good. I was in mid-artichoke once, and encountered a rusty nail buried in the heart!

How can you chew and digest pineapple cores? Your "personal plumbing" must be clean as a whistle! I like chicken and turkey wings, and my family thinks they're a waste of time and should be used only to make soups.

My friends Mick and Alan had an apartment together in Boston's North End and it was infested with roaches. It seems their particular critters enjoyed snacking on a painting they had in their dining room. They'd be sitting eating dinner and watching the scenery in the picture vanishing before their eyes! "Wasn't there a tree in that lower left corner last night?" " *yawn* Yes...I think there was...and now look..the barn is gone!" Much funnier when they tell it!

Now that's grounds for reporting someone! *runs and hides*

I am just gobsmacked that anyone could find a cooked roach (much less a raw one, moving or not) in her/his food..and keep eating that food. It just staggers me! Maybe the reaction would be different if they actually had to pick the perp out of their pizza instead of just saying "if it happened..I'd keep eating my food." I dunno, people!

honestly i'd just as soon get my daily dose of social interaction somewhere besides the checkout lane. like online, for example. I definitley don't enjoy interacting with gum-snapping, sullen, tattood teenagers with faces that look like they fell head first into a tackle box. But I hate that do it yourself check out thing. It always breaks down when I get on it. And the "voice" is too loud. It yells at me and scares me. "INSERT CASH NOW!!!" Okay! All right already!

Speaking of snapping and popping off bits and pieces, I just remembered an incident in the A&P a couple weeks ago. Nice asparagus at $.99 a pound. Woman standing over said asparagus, snapping off all the woody ends and re-rubber banding her bundle! How do like them...asparguses??

The one who was still standing upright and breathing?

And olive oil! Who ever thought of pressing olives and using this wonderful "juice" to cook things in? Who mixed it with vinegar and poured it on greens..and why? It's really amazing, isn't it?

Wow that's pretty harsh. I always give my kids a cookie or small bagel. My Shop Rite gave me a kids club card that entitles the kids to 1 cookie while shopping. I find it really helps when we are waiting in the checkout line. (PS if my daughter wants a bagel instead of a cookie, I pay for it). If you have a card or whatever for a free cookie then OF COURSE that's a very different thing from what I was discussing. I was expressing my utter disgust at parents who think it's OK to placate a whining and or hungry child with "free" food. And that includes letting them stick their little hands into the salad bar and take carrot sticks. I've seen that recently as well. Unbelieveable, these parents! Taking advantage of free services the store allows is obviously a very different situation.

Re read my post. I am NOT trotting back to Shop Rite for this type of thing. Sorry. I make up for it in other ways, trust me. I believe in kharma. If the dopes don't get my produce correct when I am busy BAGGING my own groceries and not looking at what they're doing....it's tough titties.

Maybe I need to clarify? I am not asking for anyone to tell us who invented mayo or mother sauces or french fries. We can't know this for sure. I am curious as to: The book you mentioned sounds great! Love that stuff.....

What food creation do you find the most puzzling. Like..."who the hell thought to add X to Y and come up with Z!!" Do you ever get curious about the very FIRST person who discovered that meat that fell into the fire accidentally (?) just tasted better? That's pretty basic stuff. But...how did our mother sauces happen? I wonder who was the ONE person who decided to mix eggs and oil to make mayonnaise. Or flour, butter and milk to make bechamel. And how about the person who FIRST mixed eggs, flour, milk and sugar to make...cake? This remains such a sacred mystery to me. For all of us who love food, there has to be ONE PERSON...one HUMAN BEING...who discovered that oysters taste good, that berries cooked in pie crust are more delectable than eaten raw....that tomatoes aren't something to be feared but eaten. Someone made ketchup for the first time in China! Man. It boggles my mind. All happy accidents perhaps. I love the book "Food In History" by Reay Tannahill. If you have other food history books you'd like to share please make them known.

That's what it's all about, my friends!

Those little plastic packets of ketchup or taco sauce were used for practical jokes in college. Slit "just so" and slid under the toilet seat, they would project a fine, powerful stream from anyone plunking down just right on the toilet. And one more...butter pats hurled just right at the dining hall ceiling would *STICK* until just warmed enough...and then *PLONK" later on the heads of unsuspecting diners. Not that I DID any of this stuff now...I'm just sayin!!

These stories are awesome.

I have posted on this before but I'll repeat that I hate parents who get their kids cookies and brownies to keep their little mouths busy at the supermarket and then they don't PAY for the snacks. I also dislike adults taking fruit and eating it while shopping and doing likewise. There's no intention of paying for the food they are stealing. And that's what it is...stealing. I always hope they get a nice case of diarrhea. Now.. if I am harried, hurried, and not paying attention to the screen as the items are scanned, and am charged for red cabbage when I have raddichio in my plastic bag...well...I am usually already home when I find this out, and the product is chopped, cooked or otherwise in use. I am not a saint, so I allow myself the occasional error on the part of the checker to be in my favor a couple times a year. I more than make up for my "behavior" though..because I am the gal who puts the chicken breasts BACK into the meat case that some lazy assed FOOL has dropped into the feminine hygiene section of the market. As long as the package is still cold. If it's warm, I take it to customer service and 'splain where I found it. Hopefully they get rid of it. (HAW HAW)

This is personal...so go as far you want to. What was your most ROMANTIC food moment in your life? I related mine in a thread a while back. He was eating a sandwich. He was eating it with relish and gusto and.....(like Fred Mertz noted in his Ethel....noise!! ) and I fell for him! Then...once..I lost track of him at a Farmer's Market we were at. I finally found the man. He was standing in a fresh corn stall......nibbling away! The butter in his chin...and the kernals sticking. He looked like a sheepish...(or perhaps Cornish??) little boy! How I loved him. He is deceased now.....

For All Pumpkin Pie Haters This is a staple at our Holiday Tables and has been for 40 years and even before I was born. It's light, and not too sweet. You have to try it. Why wait for the holidays? Easy as PIE: Pumpkin Chiffon Pie 1 cup pumpkin puree 3 eggs 1/2 cup white sugar 1 cup milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice 2 tablespoons butter 1 (.25 ounce) package unflavored gelatin 1/4 cup water One prepared, baked pie crust 1 In a saucepan over medium heat cook pumpkin puree to heat through, stirring frequently. 2 Separate the eggs. Combine the egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar, milk, spices and butter or margarine. Add to pumpkin and cook, stirring frequently until mixture is of custard consistency. Remove mixture from heat. 3 Soften gelatin in the cold water and stir into the pumpkin until dissolved. Chill mixture until it begins to stiffen (about 1 1/2 hours). 4 Whip egg whites until stiff. Fold whipped egg whites into the pumpkin mixture. Spoon mixture into the prepared pan and chill until set (about 3 hours). Serve topped with lightlty sweetened whipped cream.

I don't really understand the term "acquired taste". It's like one is being forced to enjoy something he or she dislikes. "Keep eating it! C'mon!! You'll stop gagging eventually!! " How about the term "Stretching My Palate." "I stretched my palate to include cilantro..." Still tastes soapy in some foods but I love it in my salsa.

Warning...Danger Will Robinson! Diamond Crystal has new Kosher Salt packaging. There's no more metal spout thingie. Just found this out tonight. As I pushed my thumb in where it says "PUSH IN...PULL UP..." yeah....right... I soon found I was pushing much softer cardboard. And a level of salt that of course was right up to lowest level of the "V" I was pressing. Salt everywhere. Now..where's that superstition thread again...??

I ate alone quite a bit in Boston when I first moved there and hadn't met anyone yet. I remember always getting nice tables. I do remember some b*tches at a nearby table making comments about how pathetic it was for single people to eat alone in restaurants, and then, after I'd ordered a half bottle of champagne for myself to celebrate my move, I heard one of them mutter to the other "I think that champagne thing is a little bit MUCH..." Boston...a city of warmth! Phhht!

More pests...Silverfish and Firebrats are often mistaken for roaches, even though they aren't, and one of their primary diet sources is glue from boxes, book bindings, and magazines. They scurry around much like roaches do and have that disgusting appearance. That hard outer shell and wiggly legs. :::: shudder :::

http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/american.htm] http://www.internet4classrooms.com/susan/c...ch_factpage.htm

OOOH! I just thought of a good one...one that used to drive me batty. You know the (old??) cans of sardines or ham...with that BLASTED KEY that you'd thread the little strip of metal through and then turn? And the metal would BUST half way round the tin?? Or you'd get so much tin build-up on the key that it wouldn't turn anymore? Who the hell invented THAT! ARGGGH!!!